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The tale of Nathaniel Spong

Not that I’m going for the “Something old, something new…” category, but since I gave you something new and very creepy yesterday, here’s something I wrote a while ago, and is, frankly, quite silly.

Still, enjoy…

The Tale Of Nathaniel Spong

This is the tale of Nathaniel Spong
Whose resolution was to do no wrong.
For one whole year, decided Nat.
Now, what could possibly go wrong with that?

So come the new year, our Mr Spong
Commenced the plan he’d decided upon
And made a list of things to do
Which took him up until January 2.

And all at once, he realised an error
And felt himself fill with terror –
How could he handle the year to come
When he’d forgotten to call his Dad and his Mum?

A phone call was made and later on
He realised at once what he’d done wrong;
He hadn’t listed enough parameters!
What else could happen? Something calamitous?

He lengthened his list, writing more and more
And before he knew it, it was January 4.
The list kept growing, day and night
Until there was no more left to write.

And then Nathaniel thought to relax,
He’d protected himself against attacks:
Of guilt, or worry, of doing wrong.
Oh, pity the fate of Nathaniel Spong.

For little did he know that bright winter’s day
What was about to happen would lead him astray
To the extent that his plan would fall to dust
And all because of the sin of lust.

For there was a lady, a lovely gel
Whose very presence made hearts swell
With love and sweetness and kindness and how
(A pity then that she was a right cow!)

Young Susan Smythe was by nature a user;
Who’d ensure that each beau was really a loser.
But hopefully wealthy, indeed even rich.
A 100% total right b…

At a party they met, set up by a mate
Of Nathaniel’s who’d wanted to do a blind date
For his pal, who he knew had no social life
But discovered she wanted to be his wife.

She courted Nathaniel, did our young Sue
And suddenly Nat found the number grew
Of things that earlier had seemed so wrong
When that list had been so big, so long.

With Susan, all was right for Spong,
Or so he thought, but ere very long
Nat had reason to check his banking arrangements
To see whether he could afford this sudden engagement.

To his horror he found when he looked at his balance
That Susan had made the most of her talents
And milked the account for all she was worth
So that Mr Spong had not a penny on earth.

She vanished the next day when her crimes had appeared.
And look though he could, she had disappeared
Along with his spondooliks, his money, his cash
And though his friends cautioned him, he did something rash.

And restarted the list, by the light of the moon
After all, it was only the seventh of June.
Plenty of time to put his new plan into play
To take over the world by New Year’s Day.

The list of what wouldn’t now be allowed
Extended beyond Nat, to the increasing crowd
Of people who supported Spong’s Plan for the planet
And affected those who ostensibly ran it.

Governments around the world
Heard of this plan and began to yield
To the ever increasing clamour for change
For something new, no matter how strange.

A week before New Year’s and Nathaniel Spong
Had overthrown all that was wrong
Countries now answered to his every whim.
Who decided everything? Well, he did – yes, him.

The drawback of this imaginative plan
Struck him as he was deciding who can
Run the bus route between one street and another
And which of two women was really the mother.

Solomon’s idea was to split the child
A barbaric plan, Nat declared in a lilt.
He granted custody to both women forever
And insisted that they bring up the child together.

The list of what he decided increased
Until he was deciding the very least
Decision: whether the walls should be blue or pink.
“Can’t any of you people for yourselves think?”

Bored by this in 48 hours
Nathaniel returned the levers of powers
To those who’d been democratically elected
And he dissolved the power structures erected.

This took a couple of frustrating days, during
Which the world returned to its pre-Spong days
Leaving Nathaniel Spong at the New Year’s chimes
Living, as they say, in “Interesting Times”…